


Ad Conquer Amor

by PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire



Category: Borgia: Faith and Fear, Borgias - Ambiguous Fandom, The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Character Analysis, Character Study, F/M, Incest, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7829170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire/pseuds/PotatoesOfWorldlyDesire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You can't understand a villain until you understand why he is a hero in his own version of the story.' - Unknown clever person.<br/>This is just a thingie focusing on Cesare's feelings at any point during the series, really. Minor spoilers and borderline incestuous feelings, but absolutely nothing graphic, sadly...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ad Conquer Amor

I've killed for her. I'll die for her one day.

She doesn't want anything like that.

I've wept for the feel of her. She'll weep for me one day.

She doesn't need to do that.

History, it seems, is not a force that is kind to love; it wears against it with such a friction that it sets on fire- any loves that are remembered are those that are still ablaze. The rest are ashes and embers and smoke. I know what I will be remembered for, and I know it isn't what I want to be remembered for. 

We are Spanish; we embrace. We are siblings; we give free love and counsel. We are happy like this. We share each other's joys and pains, as families do. A single beating heart.

Those are the lies that she tells herself, and that I wish I could believe. When the fat old man who dares call himself our father uses her as a pawn in his games for the third time, and I see her gliding down the isle once again, a picture of the false purity that infects our family like an open wound, I have to leave. Swallow my rage and swallow what the world can never know is jealousy. 

Oh god, Lucrezia.

My blood boils to think of her. When I am in hell, frying for each and every sin, I will not weep at the pain but at the separation from my love. She wishes for love; not a part in the politics and the crimson horrors of war. Not like every other Borgia. 

Her hair is gold and her lips are ruby; her dress is pearl and her skin alabaster- surely if her body is a temple then it is a lavish, bejewelled affair, created in it's utter perfection to give great awe and inspiration to those to come close to it. One that, even from the outside, begs the question of what wonders and salvations lurk for those who are permitted entry. 

When she takes her vows and kisses someone so sweetly, it becomes clear to me that she is not a temple. She is heaven. The winged seraphs of heaven would covet her innocence, the hope in her love and the trust in her touches as she allows her new husband to escort her back down the isle and into a new lie- a new life, I mean. 

When she dances with him she flies and when she sits it is with the grace of a thousand countesses. Her feet don't seem made for dancing, or sitting, or even walking- they look made for kissing, massaging and carrying. 

Should I have these feelings? The followers of god would have me believe not. What of god himself? Is this not all written and orchestrated by him, in his plan? How can god write such things and ideas into my mind and then tell me it's wrong? Why would god make me like this, and then decide that he has made an error- but an error so carefully planned and placed that it can hardly be called an error? 

Then it seems there is a lexical gap- a certain qualia between god and I that cannot be breached by a mere mortal. And so there are only two options- I can wait for god to make the first move, which he does seem rather loathe to do, or I can immortalise myself. And how does one do that? 

Violence, blood, sex.... Such things are as common as salt in the ocean. I look at my past- man of god, defender of god, killer and conqueror of Italia. So small, so hideously insignificant is the burning that this places in my soul when I compare it to what I feel for Lucrezia. 

No, if I am ever to properly sit down and talk to god as an equal, as an immortal, it will not be due to the bloodshed and violence and the fucking. It will be on Lucrezia's wings and her love that guides and places me there.

I am Cesare Borgia, and love is what I will be remembered for.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the way Cesare has been written as a sort of heroic villain, but being the hopeless romantic I am I kind of wanted to explore his reasoning a bit more around his feelings for Lucrezia. 
> 
> Please let me know if you enjoyed it or if you think there's anything I need to improve on, and thank you for reading!


End file.
